Archive for the ‘Endstage Hepatitis’ Category

We are still here. Son is still here not by the grace of any God, neither of us believes in such silliness anymore. It’s been awhile updating but it’s a good update because the battle for life is stable for this today. Each day his liver isn’t well it shows on him now like an unwanted shadow. He’s in bed 99.9% of each day, rising to use the restroom or try to drink. He drinks alot and eats little because his body is rejecting nourishment the last two weeks. He is sick to his stomach if he eats.

Today was a good day, Happy Labor Day. Everyday feels like labor lately! So much happens day to day sometimes I have to live in just the moment. It keeps me sane.

I’m not hopeful nor tempting fate so I will just say our son has been chemical free near 4 weeks now. I noticed a shift in him weeks ago when his choice of contacts from his former life in the city changed. All of the sudden he had seperated himself from users of past and began associating with individuals his age who don’t use. I was silently hopeful and remain so. He cannot get treatment while using, maybe he just got tired of getting sick running out of medication. Sick of being sick.

I still hide my medication and keep a count and the last 4 weeks none was missing nor did he ask for any. He hasn’t been spending his disability or leaving home. This big shift is a welcomed change like the early fall chill in the air nights lately. His mental stability has been stable, even moreso this last week. The con is he also has sworn off medical treatment for his Hepatitis C and liver pain.

The most he will allow them to do now is monitor him by blood tests. He has circles under his eyes but the whites aren’t yellow thank God so his liver must be okay, for the moment.

If you out there have a mentally ill addicted adult child do not let him move back into your home. Do as I say and not as you read here in this blog. I have heard it a thousand times yet didn’t heed the advice. Your heart may painfuly rip into two but you have to let the addict hit rock bottom. Mine is still here. Today it stops or he leaves and never comes back.

As parents we want nothing more on earth than our children to grow and have fulfilling lives. As older parents of adult children we should die before our children but obviously it’s not always so. I’m not superwoman, I am not a perfect mother. My children were brought up by only myself in our own home in a small rural town where everyone knew each other. There was no big drug problems back then nor was there much crime rate nay for normal teenage pranks and growing pains.

Fast forward to recent. I am well aware bringing home a drug addict and choices I have made have not always been right ones. I am an enabler clearly, both son and I know this. Sitting in front of us now is darkness and scary. Son is becoming too ill and knows it’s near time for our ill acted wait and see to end. We will go to the hospital sooner than later, likely by sunrise and he and I will be terrified together. Nobody lives forever, the cat and mouse game of needle in skin you will always lose.

Son is in a vicious cycle of nausea and vomiting daily all day as Hepatitis engulfs his body. Denial get’s you dead. In order to forgo his stomach and treat the pain and nausea he must see a doctor but refuses. Arguing, all is pointless with anyone who refuses treatment. Our outdated Constitution gives him the right to do nothing while family can only watch. When an individual becomes unconscious only then can paramedics proceed. Last night was that reality but son never passed out so no assistance was rendered when they arrived. It was a nightmare on camera in our small town once word got out.

This storm has passed for now and tempers are winding down. Because of son’s illness he rarely goes outside the home. The next appointment I have with the clinic I will not bring home anything son is wanting to use. It’s a fact the last few days he has been sober, though not happily so. Unhappy and sober is better than nothing. Each day is a battle against not one but many monsters inside my son. Once addiction takes hold as so his last 9 years it’s nearly impossible to just stop, especially when the person has a major mental illness. I’m no doctor, nurse or anything of the sort but it’s all we have at this moment. If my child is to die he will die with family and not on the street.